Alliances generally don't work. I can't think of one long lasting alliance in the game. Alliances were all the rage back in the early fall last year. All those died out.

Mergers don't have a great success rate but have done better than alliances so far. Alliances require two (or more) leaderships to get along over the long haul when their goals tend to drift over time. A successful merger requires one leadership willing to give up control. (Note: I am aware HJ does not follow that pattern but every rule needs its one exception).

PS I am not calling Feeder guilds under a single management an alliance.

Denrael wrote:If two guilds want to join today, I would suggest both guilds dissolve and form a new guild under a fresh name. That way there is an equal loyalty hit to all.

Not really practical for two level 10 guilds with complete guild favors who want to raid VG together.

No, but it would be fair to both guilds, why should one guild merge into another and lose half its loyalty while the other guild doesn't? Not telling anyone how to run their guild or merge, but that would be the ideal way to do it in my eyes.

Bbbb wrote:Alliances generally don't work. I can't think of one long lasting alliance in the game. Alliances were all the rage back in the early fall last year. All those died out.

Not disagreeing with you, but wouldn't putting one toon in the Allied guild help? They didn't have the merc system in place that we have now, so it might work. I haven't been able to find a guild wanting to join forces with mine yet, but that seems logical, that way both guild members get a notification that the other guild is doing a raid and having a PW protected 10 merc cap for the allied guild to join and help.

Darkhorse wrote:I don't see (Edit: game merging two Guilds) happening in the near future purely for time investment needed versus returned value to the player. AKA it's a good idea, but probably doesn't get a very high priority in our long list of "stuff we want to add to the game".

beekeo wrote:(Edit: game merging two Guilds) Logistical nightmare without building a tool -- ideally the GMs should handle this from within the game, not as a customer service action. Guild renames and re-renames are already taking up too much time (Edit: GMs can now rename Guilds).

Venan, thank you for lowering the cost of changing Guilds in v2.0 (Note 1). It solves a lot of problems with leaving a Dead Guild (Note 2), lower level Feeder Guilds and manually merging two Guilds.

Manually Merging two Guilds is still painful for the characters in the lower level Guild, but a lot less than in 1.7.

Research Note (you can skip this): Since the 10% Loyalty Penalty affects Total Guild Loyalty (5,000 Max Points), a character with Guild Loyalty Perk 1- 5 from a Dead Guild can try six different Guilds (0.90 ^ 6= 0.5314) and only reduce Total Guild Loyalty to 2,657 points. Allowing them to keep Guild Loyalty Perk 1- 4.